Lost in memories in Albert Square …..

How easy it is to find and post images of Manchester before now.

But how much better to post an image you took and share it along with the memories of the place at the time.

We are in Albert Square when public lavatories were still a feature of the main island sandwiched between the statues of the great and the good and parking meters ringed this public space.

I think it is 1979 but could be any year up to 1984.  

A clue might well be the construction work on the western side of the square which now houses offices and a restaurant.

Over the years I have sat in the colonnaded space looking out at Prince Albert and the Town Hall beyond and pondered on just when the Victorian urinals vanished under a previous makeover of the Square.

They were not remarkable but were still fine examples of Municipal provision and a century or so after they were laid out as part of the memorial to Prince Albert I remember using them, marvelling at the mix of tiles and polished metal.

Location; Albert Square

Picture; Albert Square, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Chorlton Row, a road half as old as time

You have to get up early to see Beech Road at its best, preferably on a spring or summer morning when there is no traffic on the road.

 Only then can you can get a real sense of how it twists and turns following long forgotten obstacles like the old beech tree which stood for most of the 19th century almost opposite Reeves Road and the field boundaries which cut into the road.

For me the best vantage point is at the corner of Wilton Road by the railings of the Rec. Look up towards Barlow Moor Road and its twists and turns more than once, while its lazy route down to the green is even more pronounced.

I guess it will be almost as old as time, linking Barlow Moor Road with the village green and in probability was there before the Tudor buildings which include the Horse & Jockey. Various dates have been suggested for the block but its position beside the road as it turns onto the green would suggest that it post dates the road.

Picture; detail from the 1854 OS by kind permission of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Memories of that other Thames ……

 I don’t know if cargo ships still berth along my bit of the River at Greenwich.

But someone will know, and I hope will tell me.

I left London in 1969 and while I still came home for holidays my visits to this bit of where I grew up became less and less.

But back in the late 1970s I did wander the water with a camera and recorded what I saw.

To some they will be dismal, and grimy but they were my part of London.

What strikes me about the berthed ship is how deep the inside compared to the men.

It’s a silly observation given that the hold had to store heaps of things, but it reminds me of just how different the Thames at Greenwich was five decades ago.

The image is one that sat as a collection of negatives in our cellar for 40 odd years, and only recently has come out of the shadows as I digitalize those pictures.

And Peter from Greenwich added "Good evening Andrew, I always enjoy your pictures of the grimy industrial part of my hometown. 

The coaster on the mud at Lovells was one of the first of a type designed with elevating wheelhouses and masts ets to work upstream on the Rhine and other European rivers. The depth of the hold would have probably been around 4 metres".

Location; The River Thames

Pictures; waiting to load, the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

  

Adventures along the River ............

Not all adventures happen when you are ten.

It was the August of 1979 and I was home for a holiday and armed with a new camera I took myself off down by the river.

I was curious to see how things had changed from when I worked at a food factory hard by the tunnel.

Back then our favourite end of work routine was to walk into the Cutty Sark at lunchtime with our overalls stilled caked in milk powder and rub shoulders with the posh young things who had popped over the water to sample south east London pubs.

With hindsight I am the first to admit it was childish and irresponsible but when you are 19 you view things differently.

I can remember thinking that nothing much had changed in the decade I had been away.

The river was still a working river, warehouses still lined the water and during the day the place was filled by the noise of men at work.

And in the evening, sitting outside the Cutty Sark there was that occasional dull thud as the moored barges banged gently together on the swell caused by a late night pleasure boat.

I haven’t been back in thirty years but looking at pictures posted by friends of the same places, it seems the transformation is so dramatic and complete that I would feel lost.

At which point I have to stress, that this is no nostalgic rant at what we have lost.  The Thames could be a smelly and dangerous place, where those who worked it were often labouring for long hours, for low pay, and going home to substandard houses whose sell by date was well out.

But as a ten year old from Peckham soon to move to Eltham this was the backdrop to my life.

We never lived far from the river and despite its busy working existence we played on the mud when the tide was out, looking for treasure, but usually finding nothing more than sodden lumps of timber and the odd dead fish.

We took to the foot tunnels and travelled the ferry, explored that other place north of the River and on occasion just sat watching as ships, tugs and the odd upper class sailing boat passed us by.

Along with all of that, there was the smell, which was a mix of ozone, and ships fuel and rotting seaweed.

But being out of Peckham, you were also mindful that the stretch from Woolwich to Greenwich was not your stretch and there was every possibility that you would be challenged by other kids or told to “bugger off” by someone making his living from our playground.

And then I was eighteen and standing at the bus stop opposite the ferry, behind the cinema, waiting for a bus to work at six in the morning, idly watching the river, and catching the odd sharp gust of wind whipping off the water.

As adventures go it didn’t match those from my childhood or the ones I was to recreate in the ‘70s but there was still a bit of magic about it.

Location; the River across three decades

Pictures; walking the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Catching the 81X from Barlow Moor Road in the summer of 1961

At the bus terminus, July 1961

We are at the bus station on Barlow Moor Road in the summer of 1961, and in front of us is the 81X which ran from Southern Cemetery to Hightown via Albert Square.

Now I can be fairly certain of that because beside me I have the Corporation Maps of Manchester and District for 1963.

With the 81X

Of course there is just the outside possibility that the route of the 81 had changed during the time the picture was taken and the map with its bus routes was published.

And I have no doubt that someone will point out that the 81X had a slightly different route to the 81 but until then I shall continue to assume that our bus followed the 1963 route travelling along Barlow Moor Road, Manchester Road and Upper Chorlton Road into town.

At which point I might just be accused of being a little obsessed by a Manchester bus in the 1960s.

But not so for the picture and the bus map offer up a rich source of history.

It starts with the bus livery which is the red of Manchester Corporation and is a reminder that back then both the cities of Manchester and Salford and the surrounding local authorities ran their own public transport services.

Bus routes through Chorlton in 1963

So on reaching town our passengers could be confronted with the blue and cream buses of Ashton-under-Lyne, the green of Salford, and the green of the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport and Electricity Board along with the maroon and cream colours of Oldham.

What is more these different Corporation buses ran along the same roads and for some way at least shared similar routes.

And like that bus timetable there is much history in the picture.

A lost scene

Those telephone kiosks may have lingered on into the end of the century but most have now gone as have the old style bus sign with its Manchester logo.

That said the small police station has yet to be built and there is a clear view across to the houses on Beech Road which in turn points to the absence of those first two houses on the even side of Beech Road.

So not perhaps a story that encompasses the great dramatic sweep of history but one that lots of people will relate to, and that is good enough for me.

And within a few hours of posting the story, Steven commented

" Lovely! The X usually suggests a shorter route than normal.

 In 1960 the 81 only ran to Albert Square so the extension beyond must have been quite recent. I suspect the bus terminating at Hightown is the reason for the X as the whole route went to Crumpsall Green."

And a late correction to the story Annette Roberts has written in that "the police station was there when I lived in Claude Road from the 1950s. 

My dad was a police constable based for a while at the station and the first few houses on Beech Road behind the station were police houses. 

I used to play with the children who lived there. The station had an air raid siren on the roof which they used to test once in a while. 

Think the picture is N awkward angle as the station would definitely be there in 1961 as I used to go there."

So another piece of collective history.  I just love it.

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester

Pictures; Chorlton-cum-Hardy bus terminus, 1961 from the collection of Sally Dervan  and Maps of Manchester and District, Manchester Corporation, 1963, courtesy of David O’Reilly 


*Manchester Buses, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manchester%20Buses

Snapshots …………. 1841 the class divide measured by horses

Now, I am never surprised at how easy it is to get sidetracked during a piece of research.

And so today, while crawling over back copies of the Manchester Guardian, for the 1850s, I fell across “Horses, Carriages, Hackney Coaches and Omnibuses in Manchester”. *

Not perhaps the most riveting of titles as a subject to over excite the breakfast conversation, but it revealed some fascinating detail of how we lived.

In particular, this table, which “exhibits the number of horses in private use for riding, & the number of draught horses, within each township of the borough”.

At first glance it might appear trivial but as the article points out, “How distinctly the suburbs preferred for the dwellings of the wealthier classes are marked out in this table, by the preponderance in the number of private riding and carriage horses over those for draught.

The townships thus distinguished are, Broughton, Burnage, Cheetham, Chorlton-Upon -Medlock, Crumpsall, and Rusholme.  In the other seven townships, the draught horses or those used for business, predominate over those used for personal locomotion.” 

Of course, it may not be a startling observation, for those well versed in the growth of the twin cities, but it fascinated me.

Location; Manchester and Salford

Picture; from the Manchester Guardian, 1850

* Horses, Carriages, Hackney Coaches and Omnibuses in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, February 23rd, 1850

Bits of history I like ..... Sailing By ...... Soul Music .... on the wireless today

I wonder how many non sailors listen to the Shipping Forecast which is broadcast just before 1 am every morning?

Arriving home, Corfu, 1984

It is preceded by 'Sailing By', that piece of music which I always associate with news of fog patches, and wind  and rain, from places like Shannon, Rocklall, Bailey, Tyne, Dogger and Fisher.

And today BBC Radio 4's Soul Music programmes explores the music with a a mixed bag fans.

"Written in 1963, 'Sailing By' by Ronald Binge was chosen by the BBC as the musical interlude to be played every night before the Shipping Forecast. 

These are the stories of some of the people for whom this piece has a powerful emotional connection.

After Cyrilene Tollafield's parents left Barbados for the UK, Cyrilene heard 'Sailing By' whilst cuddling up to her grandmother and her cousins during hurricane warnings. 

Writer Henrietta McKervey spent a night in Fastnet lighthouse and listened to 'Sailing By' as she drifted off to sleep. Having spent years of his life out at sea, Captain Harry McClenahan marvels at how the piece mirrors the rises and falls of the sea. 

Chris Binge would interrupt his dad whilst he was composing at the piano in his music room, the air thick with cigarette smoke, and says whenever people find out who his father was it's 'Sailing By' that they know. Helen Harrison conducted the piece at a concert in Blackpool and at the piano she unpacks the musicality and orchestration of the piece. 

Cruising the River, 1979

The best part of Jane Heiserman's day is the hour in the evening when she and her adult son, who has autism and lives at home, study together. 'Sailing By' became a firm favourite of theirs when they were looking for music as part of a module on the Intertropical Convergence Zone. She says it brings a sense of calm to their day and serves as confirmation that everything is going to be alright.

With recordings of 'Sailing By' by The Perry/Gardner Orchestra, Helen Harrison, Dave Spooner (Ronald Binge's Grandson) and Baked A La Ska.

Producers: Maggie Ayre and Toby Field

Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann

Editor: Emma Harding

Soul Music is a BBC Audio Bristol production for BBC Radio 4".*

Location BBC Radio 4

Picture; arriving home, Corfu, 1984, and Cruising the River, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Soul Music, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0026999